This invention relates in general to article delivery mechanisms and in particular to a new and useful apparatus and method for controlling the withdrawal of shipments.
The invention improves the state of the art and provides a method and an arrangement for the successive delivery of singled shipments such as letters, postcards and the like differing in their lengths, heights, thicknesses, weights and stiffness from e.g. a stack to a conveyor to achieve the greatest possible throughput, i.e. to transport as great a number of singled letters as possible from a withdrawing device to a conveyor in a given time interval. This should assure troublefree, continuous operation in conjunction with a succeeding distribution section. As a result, the singled, successive shipments are offered to the succeeding distribution section with optimized, minimal, spacings over a conveyor in such a manner that a correctly timed control of the directing switches of the distribution section and smooth stacking of the letter shipments in compartments are assured.